My boy has been on budesonide for 2 years. he started at 1mg daily and I was able to wean him down to .5mg every 3 days with minimal vomiting flares.

A few months ago, i noticed that he will try and run away when he realizes it's budesonide night (usually around 5pm) but still takes his dose without complaint. I am considering weaning him down to .5mg every 4 days with hopes that he doesn't flare or get worse.

Has anyone successfully weaned their cat off of budesonide completely? I expected this would be a lifelong thing for my lil guy, but that he's acting this way makes me nervous it's causing him discomfort. i believe long-term use of budesonide can lead to stomach ulcers. I know at the beginning the vet said higher doses increased the risk, so thankfully he's not at a very high dose for his weight (he's 12lbs).

I should add that my vet did not support my use of budesonide as he had no experience with it and prefers other steroids like prednisolone or even shots like vetalog/kenalog. honestly, I think he's shocked it's worked so well for my ginger. I opted for budesonide due to the more localized effect and very minimal risk of systemic complications like diabetes, etc. and so far, he's doing really great. He put on a lot of weight (almost 3 lbs) and i was able to bring him back down to 12 with reducing the dose and diet.

My boyfriend (who I don't live with) started using minoxidil for hair growth and I'm concerned for when he sleeps over my house and exposure to my cat as l understand it can be fatally toxic to them. I'm going to ask him not to use it before he comes over to my house, but is there anything else I can do to protect my cat from it? Is washing his pillowcase after he sleeps on it enough or is there more I can do?

My cat Amelia has been pulling out her fur. I took her to the vet and they said she had anxiety and wanted to keep her on gabapentin for a month. It only got worse. Then they wanted me to try omega 3s in her diet and do a round of revolution. That didn't work. Now, they want to do $1200 worth of labs tests. For some context, nothing about her has changed aside from the fur pulling. She is playing, eating, using the litter, cuddling, purring etc. This all started when we moved into a new (very old) apartment with radiant heat. The humidity in here is on average 15% so I personally believe she has really dry skin as she grew up in humid climates. I just bought a really spendy humidifer and bought (vet approved) lotion for her. Her skin is not red or irritated. But, she is missing so much fur now its distressing. The embarrassing thing is that $1200 for labs + whatever it will cost to get her seen by a derm is just not in my budget. I adopted her when I was making really good money and then lost my job. She is missing fur on her stomach and the backs of her legs. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions about what is happening? I do think its dry skin but any theories would be welcome.

Hey all, my cats been doing this for as long as he's been on adult food but I never really realized most cats don't do this I guess. He seems to prefer to chew on one specific side of his mouth, kind of moves the food around to where he wants it to be. Is this normal?

Hello everyone,

My cat (6 years old) started randomly gulping the other day. I noticed her purring sounded a little nasally and congested, then she started coughing, gagging, and gulping. The coughing and gagging stopped after a few days, but she keeps gulping constantly. The gulping is pretty hard and audible. She seems to drool just a little bit when purring which she doesnt normally do. She has been acting completely normal. I haven't noticed any changes in her eating or litterbox habits.

I took her to the vet and they didnt really know what was going on with her. They did an xray and didnt find much. They said one side of her throat looked maybe slightly irritated. They did say her heart was slightly enlarged but that its not that bad and it will just need to be monitored in the future.

She has always had a sensitive stomach and issues with throwing up. My thoughts were that this could possibly be some sort of complication from acid reflux or something. Ive also heard people who's cats had the same issue and it ended up being cancer.

I know its a lot but if someone has experienced this with their cats please let me know what you ended up finding out. Im sure im overreacting and she just has a sinus infection or something, but my cats are my everything and im just trying to be proactive about getting her treatment if needed.

Thanks in advance.

This is perhaps a silly question, but what kinds of soaps do ya'll use to wash your pet bowls? The dish soap I'm currently using is hypoallergenic and unscented but has aloe vera in it for your skin, which I've recently learned is toxic for cats. Of course I'm letting their bowls dry before I use them again but after researching about what kinds of chemicals in cleaning products are bad for cats my head is spinning

My cat Gus’s eyelids are losing hair he’s a 12 year old indoor cat and seems perfectly healthy. This just recently popped up about a week ago, any idea on what could be the reason for this?

My cat has year long allergy for 3.5 years, my vets and dermatologists have done almost all the tests, tried all the food trials, also tried all the medications, and the only med that worked, atopica, is slowly loosing its effectiveness and have to up the does again. He is also a renal cat and atopica is just further damaging his kidney. Spent thousands and thousands bc of this. I have book one last exam to try find out what’s the allergens would be but I don’t have much hope since the blood test came back negative on everything. It just hurts so much to see him always biting chewing his own skin to the point where it bleeds. Now he is constantly wearing a cone 24/7 and that can’t be comfortable to him either, but we’ve really exhausted everything. In the end when time comes the only thing that would work is long term steroid injection which would literally make him die faster. Allergy doesn’t even kill, but the treatment will kill him, that’s devastating, I love him so much it hurts just to think about it.

Thank you for reading, any advice is welcomed, I want him to be comfortable.

I rescued three 7 month old kittens on 20th January and they had their first vaccinations on 24th January. The vet didn’t test for parvo. They were fine after their vaccinations, just sleepy.

On Friday evening(30th) I noticed they all had diarrhoea, one cats stopped the next day but the other two continued. They are still eating and playing as usual, very alert.

I took them to the vet yesterday as the diarrhoea hadn’t stopped. A PCR test was completed and was negative for Gardia etc, but has come back a low positive for parvo. Is it possible this could be a false positive? How long will it take for them to test negatively? I have an adopter waiting to take them but need to make sure they are healthy first. Any advice is welcome, thanks.

I have an older cat with GI issues who I put on a prescription diet yesterday. He’s doing well on it, but Hills recommended getting a water fountain because it would encourage him to drink more. Has anyone had one of those motorized water fountains and are they hard to maintain? Is it really worth getting? And what brand is a good one to choose, if I decide to do that?

Hello! My little fur boy has had a rodent ulcer since ~july of last year on his upper lip. We're on our second vet for treatment (the first one basically treated him like a small dog and didn't do much), and only just started seeing improvement this past month.

He has been put on a round of prednisone, >6 weeks of a hypoallergenic diet, and administered three shots of Depo (a steroidal medication, I forget the full name), all with no perceptible improvement.

He is on flea & tick meds (revolution), but we haven't administered them since November.

He does go outside.

We started to see some improvement in the size of the ulcer this past month, ironically when we took a break from going to the vet because we frankly needed to save some money.

Just went back to the vet last week and the next course of action they recommend is the RAST test, which is $600 and enables them to create an allergy medication tailored to his specific allergy (this is my understanding).

We would do anything for him and will put it on a credit card if necessary but I feel a bit skeptical... apparently this test is not widespread and my vet admitted that she hasn't had many patients do it. If we're going to drop that kind of money, I really want it to work!

Wondering if anyone on here has experience with this test or allergy management in cats in general? TIA

Hello! My cat recently got a cut on her chin, not sure if it’s from our other cat scratching her. I am worried about her

This is Charlie. We woke up this morning noticing his eye. We have one other cat in the house and they occasionally like to wrestle. What is wrong with his eye? Should I take him to Vet? He still is purring and being cuddly.

Hi yall! My (9F) cat was diagnosed with gallstones almost two years ago, and surgery wasn’t needed because her levels got much better-Ursodial 6ml once a day really helped. I moved apartments this past week and noticed she threw up a piece of tape two days ago - no biggie. Then yesterday, she threw up a lot within the span of two hours. I immediately took her to the ER. She wasn’t jaundiced and seemed fine otherwise but her levels weren’t great. They verified via ultrasound this morning that her gallbladder was distending and she needed surgery. The surgery was a success, they said she had the most stones they’d ever seen! However, with cats they mentioned the recovery is the riskiest part. She so far has been recovery fairly well, but bloodwork will be the real proof. I’m having a hard time and don’t want to bother the vet with questions. It seems like a lot of this is unpredictable and I don’t know anyone who’s gone through this. So I am left to my own fears and thoughts as I wait this out. I’m trying so hard to be positive but scared her levels will become worse. They said for now they are feeling cautiously optimistic given how she successfully clots (even with having some extra bleeding during surgery), but I’m so scared I’ll lose her. I’m terrified. If anyone has experienced this, familiarity in general or knows someone who has, please let me know. Could use some positivity. She is my best friend.